


it's a fact they're talking in town

by meyeri



Category: Happiest Season (2020)
Genre: F/F, queer friendships, sloane caldwell redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyeri/pseuds/meyeri
Summary: “I’m also avoiding my parents’ house,” Sloane says next, for some reason.Riley shakes her head without looking up. “We don’t need to do this. Truly. I can live my whole entire life, happily, without doing this.”
Relationships: Sloane Caldwell/Riley Bennett, Sloane Caldwell/Riley Johnson
Comments: 20
Kudos: 120





	1. you took my pride away

**Author's Note:**

> Is Riley's last name Bennett or Johnson? Surely this is the 2021 conundrum we should focus our energy on solving.
> 
> I would never have thought about this ship were it not for foxbones.
> 
> Content warning: discussions of outing, use of the word "dyke" as a sexy, admirable, desirable thing.
> 
> Title and chapter name credit: Joan Jett, I Hate Myself for Loving You.

On Boxing Day, after an entire 36 hours of her parents tripping over themselves re: the (extremely dramatic and externally fraught) revelation of Harper-and-Abby, and also re: the (less dramatic and internally fraught) revelation of not-Sloane-and-Eric, Sloane escapes. She mutters something about picking up her dry cleaning in town and, for lack of a better term, she flees. Eric, who Sloane presumes is still feeling guilty about his closet indiscretion, has the kids for the whole day, and Harper and Abby—and, to a certain extent, Jane—are still treating her with slightly chilly judgment and offense disguised as sisterhood, so Sloane feels like her absence at best won’t be noticed, and at worst might be welcomed.

It’s not a great feeling, the lodestone that’s sitting in the bottom of her core. Sloane _knows_ , is the thing. To possibly the disbelief of everyone else, she does have gay friends; she knows she was wrong, can still feel the knee-jerk flare of revulsion she felt on Christmas Eve as the words left her lips. She thinks back on the night and tastes bile, but she also remembers the slick pulse of satisfaction and triumph she felt at seeing the fear in Harper’s face, at finally having the upper hand again, something to hold over her, that feeling of power.

Anyway. She spends the afternoon in town trying to distract herself, which sort of works. She buys new gloves from the overpriced boutique across from the liquor store, which makes her feel better for about half an hour; when the satisfaction fades, she finds herself in a sunglasses store, and then a jewelry store. By the time it’s dark she’s amassed a small but expensive array of purchases, but when she loads them into the trunk of her car and slams it shut it’s like she never bought them at all: the dread returns, heavy and dense in her stomach. She thinks about getting behind the wheel and driving back to her parents’ house, to face everyone’s judgment and sympathy and discomfort and surprise once again, and she physically cannot make herself do it.

Across the street, voices and laughter and warm light spill out from La Vara, the town’s only decent wine-bar-slash-restaurant. Sloane checks her watch: it’s six o’clock, the precise time when happy hour and early dinner bleed together, which means that a tapas bar will be bursting at the seams, especially given the holidays.

She crosses the street anyway.

The hostess (who Sloane vaguely remembers from high school, a freshman on the lacrosse team when Sloane was a senior and team captain) does a double-take when she sees Sloane, and mutters something about reservations.

“The bar is fine,” Sloane says, seeing one empty seat at the far end.

“Uh, sure, okay,” the hostess stammers, which is honestly embarrassing for a thirty-three year old woman. Sloane hangs her coat on one of the pegs on the wall and slides in between a couple clearly on a date and a dark-haired woman scrolling on her phone.

“Thank you,” she says to the harried bartender when he deposits a menu and glass of water in front of her. Her voice makes the woman on her left look up.

This fucking town, Sloane swears to god.

“Hello Riley,” she says, making sure to keep her expression neutral, because Grandma Caldwell had always said that when everything else is stripped away you still have your manners.

“Hello Sloane,” Riley says evenly. She has a half-drunk glass of red wine in front of her. “Good to see you again.” Riley obviously has a similar grandmother.

Sloane inclines her head and looks around desperately for the bartender, because the other option is running away. Which, to be clear, she has been doing all day, but she still has some vestige of pride left and she refuses to outright and so obviously run away from _Riley Bennett_.

The bartender is down at the other end of the bar, so Sloane stares at her menu instead. After a moment, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Riley look back to her phone. It’s fine. She and Riley are adults and acquaintances: they can sit next to one another at a bar and leave the other alone to deal with her own shit. Sloane breathes in silently, through her nose and then out her mouth the way her yoga instructor used to tell her to, back when Sloane did yoga.

“Can I have a glass of Rueda, please,” she says to the bartender when he finally appears, keeping her voice tightly controlled. Her phone buzzes, thank god, and she fishes it out of her pocket immediately, angling the screen away from Riley’s direction just subtly, just enough. Of course, Riley isn’t paying attention to her anyway.

Jane Caldwell, 6:13pm  
_Mom wants to know if you’ll be home for dinner_

Sloane hesitates, but at the end of the day, spending a few hours awkwardly sitting next to and ignoring a woman she sees once a year unquestionably wins out over yet another tense, fraught, we’re-going-to-pretend-this-isn’t-awkward dinner with her family (plus Abby and John).

_Tell her I ran into a friend in town, you should eat without me_

She flicks her eyes back over to Riley as she types it out, just to make sure Riley isn’t somehow reading her screen (Sloane feels paranoid) and wondering why Sloane is calling her a _friend_.

Riley, naturally, is completely ignoring her. Sloane takes the opportunity to catalogue what she can, because she can’t help herself: nice haircut, drapey blouse that Sloane thinks might be silk (she’d need to get closer to verify) under a subtle charcoal herringbone blazer, several layered gold necklaces but no earrings, Longines watch that’s probably vintage, iPhone X that’s flipping between a group chat thread and a news article and back again. Minimal makeup, not that it’s needed (strong brows that she clearly maintains, plus the genetic blessings of thick eyelashes and beautiful skin), no nail polish, clean-looking doctor hands with one flat gold band on the middle right finger that catches the candlelight and glints at Sloane like a beacon.

“Okay, here’s the Rueda,” says the bartender, placing the glass of white wine in front of Sloane, “and here are the bravas for you,” depositing a truly enormous pile of potatoes in front of Riley. “Sorry for the delay,” he says, and disappears again.

“Wow,” Riley says, after a beat. She scoots the plate of potatoes a couple inches to the right so it’s in between her and Sloane; Sloane realizes abruptly that she is ravenous. “Help yourself, there’s no way I can eat all this.”

“Thank you,” Sloane says, falling back onto politeness again.

“You’re welcome,” says Riley.

Sloane takes a potato and it’s a mistake, because now they’re _sharing a meal_ and she can’t just ignore Riley for two hours in silence if she’s also eating her food.

“So how long are you in town for?” she asks abruptly, wiping her fingers on her napkin and picking up her wine glass. Riley looks up from her phone, startled.

“I leave tomorrow,” she says eventually.

“Back to work?” Sloane takes another potato.

“Yes,” Riley says, eyeing her with something that looks a lot like suspicion. “Well, work’s the excuse. The truth is that five days is about the maximum amount of time I can stay with my parents and not kill them.” Riley shrugs and sips her wine. “Smaller doses of family time is better for everyone, I’ve found.”

“Indeed,” Sloane says, and despite her best efforts something must seep into her voice, because Riley raises an eyebrow.

“What about you?”

“We’re here through the new year,” Sloane says, hating that her default is still to say _we_ even though there hasn’t been a _we_ for her in a long time. “The kids are on winter break, and my parents love to see them as much as they can.”

“Right, the kids,” Riley says, with the tone of voice of the childless, as if she’s just now reminded of the existence of other people’s children. “I thought their song was really cute at the White Elephant party, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Sloane says, trying not to flinch at the mention of the party.

Riley clearly sees it, and makes an awkward face. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“I can’t imagine why you’re apologizing.” Sloane is proud that her voice comes out perfectly even. “It’s not as if you behaved badly.”

Riley twists her lips but says nothing, just motions to the bartender for another glass of wine. Sloane’s phone vibrates again; it’s a push notification from Instagram, but she swipes it open immediately.

Riley returns to her own phone after a few beats. Sloane eats another potato and drinks her wine quicker than she should.

“I’ve been avoiding my parents’ house all day,” Riley volunteers after several minutes of silence, taking a potato and dipping it into the aioli before eating it neatly. Sloane watches the quick, elegant movements of her fingers, the polite and precise way she closes her lips, chews, swallows.

“Oh? Why?”

Riley shrugs. “Just needed a break. There’s a lot of… emotional energy floating around, with the holidays. Unrealistic family expectations, uncomfortable dynamics. I’m sure you’re familiar.” She’s not looking directly at Sloane, but instead at some indiscernible point over Sloane’s right shoulder. It makes Sloane bristle, for whatever reason.

“Are you trying to imply something?” she asks, cool.

Riley rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Sloane, get your head out of your ass. Do you always think everything anyone says is about you?” She shakes her head and goes back to her phone.

“No,” Sloane says, biting back the follow-up _I’m sorry_. She doesn’t know why she’d be sorry.

“Forget it,” Riley says, not looking up. “I don’t know why I bothered.”

Sloane looks back at her own phone, but not before she takes two more potatoes and finishes her wine. The only thing happening on her phone is Jane telling the family group chat that she changed the WiFi password, but Sloane stares at it like it’s a philosophical conundrum.

“Yes, another, thank you,” she says to the bartender, when he finally re-appears and gestures to her empty glass. Riley seems engrossed in her news article. “I’m also avoiding my parents’ house,” Sloane says next, for some reason.

Riley shakes her head without looking up. “We don’t need to do this. Truly. I can live my whole entire life, happily, without doing this.”

Sloane considers her, in profile. She remembers Riley primarily as her little sister’s childhood friend; Riley and Harper had been maybe thirteen when Sloane had left for college. In retrospect Sloane suspects that there had been more to that friendship, more that came out (ha ha) later, but Sloane had been relatively distanced from the drama of it all, had heard about it only second-hand and filtered through her mother or third-hand from other town gossip sources. Since then she’s seen Riley at the annual White Elephant party and pretty much nowhere else, aside from a few hometown weddings here and there over the past decade. She doesn’t, she’s realizing, actually know anything about Riley Bennett, aside from the fact that she’s a doctor (the town won’t let her forget it) and a lesbian (the town also won’t let her forget that, but for a different reason).

“My husband and I are getting a divorce,” Sloane says abruptly, because apparently that’s what she says now when she—feels bad, or wants to deflect, or something.

That does get Riley’s attention; she looks up from her phone and meets Sloane’s eyes. “Jesus,” she says, and turns her body towards Sloane a little. “I’m sorry.” She sounds genuinely sorry.

“Thank you,” Sloane says, picking at her cuticles and belatedly trying to hide the gesture in her napkin; it’s a nervous habit, but not one she can help. “It was a mutual decision.” Another glass of Rueda appears in front of her and she grabs at it like a lifeline.

“Still,” Riley says. Her eyes are sympathetic, warmer than Sloane has maybe ever seen them. “I’m… that must be hard.”

Sloane clears her throat, for some reason more affected by Riley’s forthright acknowledgement than any of her family’s heartfelt sideways hand-wringing. “Yes, well.” She sips her wine. “It was a long time coming, in many ways. Not that my parents understand that.” She looks at Riley, makes eye contact, raises an eyebrow.

Riley exhales and leans back, a considering expression on her face. “So they know? On Christmas Eve everything looked pretty…” She shrugs. “Perfect. On the surface.”

“I’m sure you understand the importance of appearances, having also grown up in this fishbowl,” Sloane murmurs. Riley laughs, a caught and abrupt sort of noise, as if she’s startled to find herself laughing at all.

“I suppose I do.”

“But to answer your question, I told them after the party.”

Riley tilts her head in acknowledgement. “It was an eventful night for secrets.” She says it mildly, but Sloane feels the familiar hot pulse of embarrassment, regret, and nausea all the same.

“I also apologized to Harper.” It sounds more defensive than she wants. “Not that it excuses my behavior, of course.”

Riley shrugs. “That’s between you and Harper. And Abby.”

“Did you know?” Sloane asks, for some reason immediately and impossibly curious.

“What, about Abby and Harper?” Sloane nods. “I mean, yeah,” Riley says, easily. “It was… not especially challenging to perceive.”

Obviously Harper bringing Abby home for Christmas at all was a sign, in retrospect, as was Abby’s desire to impress the family, and probably also, now that Sloane thinks about it, the weird hall closet kerfuffle with Abby, Tipper, and the Roomba. Also Abby’s clothes, which Sloane herself had clocked, and that look she’d seen Abby giving Harper during her dad’s speech. The icing on the cake is undoubtedly the retroactively hilarious conversation Sloane had had with Abby about converting Harper’s pantry into a bedroom. Sloane feels a tiny frown appear in her brow.

“Oh god,” Riley says, with outright laughter in her voice. “If you could see your face right now.”

“What?”

“Don’t overthink it.” Riley is grinning into her wine.

“You’re telling me you knew immediately?”

“Uh, yeah,” Riley says, and looks at Sloane like she’s insane. “Honestly, I sort of get how Harper could hide it from you guys, but Abby?” She opens her mouth to say more, but reconsiders. “Anyway. Let’s just say like recognizes like, and leave it at that. I also had additional context, to be fair.”

“So the rumors, from high school.” Sloane thinks back on what she had heard second-hand, but even more so she thinks about all the whispered conversations her parents had had about Harper behind closed doors over the years, their over-the-top exuberant delight whenever Connor would join them on family vacations, their constant needling about boyfriends and dating once Harper had finally dumped Connor two months into college.

Riley shrugs again. “Harper outed me,” she says, “as I’m sure you heard. Given the context of the past two days I’m sure you can piece together why, and how she knew in the first place.” Riley’s voice is even but Sloane sees her fingers tapping against the bar, one after another in a dancing pattern. The fidget is brief but telling.

Sloane clears her throat; the conversation stalls and awkwardness settles in like an uncomfortable cat. She debates turning back to her phone and letting the conversation die. They both might be happier.

“My parents don’t approve of my specialty choice,” Riley says, after a beat. “That’s what I meant about unrealistic family expectations, earlier.”

“They’re dermatologists, right?” Sloane knows they are: the Bennetts run the only dermatology practice in town, and are single-handedly responsible for keeping the image-obsessed teenage masses supplied with Accutane and tretinoin, and the image-obsessed middle-aged masses supplied with botox and Restylane.

“Yes.”

“And what is your specialty, then?”

“Internal medicine,” Riley says. Sloane has little to no idea what that means, and Riley clearly notices. “Systemic internal disease, internal organs, and issues thereof.”

It sounds challenging (though, in fairness, all medicine sounds challenging). “I find it hard to believe they aren’t proud of you,” Sloane says, before she can think better of it. “Aren’t you at Harvard?”

“Johns Hopkins.” Riley runs her knuckle around the curve of the base of her wine glass and Sloane stares at it, mesmerized by the back and forth slide of Riley’s finger, unable to look away. “Internists have challenging hours, work in hospitals, et cetera. No work-life balance, makes it hard to have a family.”

“I see. Is that something you want?”

Riley snorts. “This is such a surreal conversation,” she mutters. “Ah, I don’t know. Not right now. If the opportunity presented itself sometime in the future, maybe.”

Sloane thinks of Matilda and Magnus and the impossibly tender love she has for them, how maddening and joyful and unexpected they are, how they’ve made her life a challenge but a delight for every day since they were born, and she smiles. “I never thought I wanted children, you know. But once I had them… nothing else in my life has been as magical, as important, as fulfilling.” It’s too bare and too personal and she has no idea why she says it; she chances a look at Riley and Riley is staring at her in utter bewilderment. “Not to say that you need to have any, of course.”

“Of course,” Riley echoes softly, gaping.

Sloane takes a sip of her wine and looks down at the menu to cover. She’s still hungry, and the potatoes have been long since demolished.

On the bar Riley’s phone buzzes several times in rapid succession: incoming messages. She looks down at it and thumbs the app open, and Sloane relaxes, momentarily freed from scrutiny. She can see it’s a group chat, but nothing more, not without craning her neck or scooting closer, neither of which she is willing to do.

Sloane doesn’t even know why she’s curious, really, except that whoever is texting Riley is making her grin, making her wrinkle her nose, making her pick up her phone and type back, thumbs flying across the screen, tongue peeking out between her lips.

“Apparently your parents are in fine form this evening,” Riley says, setting the phone down and turning back to Sloane with a knowing expression. “Also, I’m touched, I didn’t know you considered me a friend.”

Fuck.

“Surely you’re familiar with the concept of lies of convenience,” Sloane says, happy that her voice comes out mostly even. “Are you texting my sister and Abby?”

Riley rolls her eyes. “Please, even I have not yet reached that level of stereotype.” Sloane looks at her blankly. “Never mind. You’re half right, it’s Abby and John. They’re still at your parents’ but we’re getting drinks later.”

“I didn’t know you were all friends.”

“Abby’s pretty great, and from what I saw at the White Elephant party, so is John.”

“So you’re just going for casual drinks with the current girlfriend of your secret high school ex-girlfriend, and the current girlfriend’s gay best friend.”

Riley nods, unbothered. “Yep.” Sloane stares at her. “God, I can, like, _see_ the gears turning,” Riley says, shaking her head and smiling to herself; Sloane feels like there’s a joke somewhere that she’s not getting. “The gays gathering together to support one another during the holidays and other trying times is an age-old tradition, Sloane.”

“But no Harper?”

Riley shrugs. “I have no idea. I am not the organizer of this excursion.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“What doesn’t bother me?”

“Abby and Harper.”

Riley frowns at her. “Why, because Harper and I used to awkwardly make out behind the chem lab after school almost two decades ago? Good lord. If you think I’m still carrying _that_ torch, well. I have news.”

“I meant with what Harper did to you.”

Riley meets Sloane’s eyes and Sloane realizes, abruptly and immediately, what she’s walked into, what trap she’s set for herself. “What Harper did to me?” Riley leans forward, suddenly intense and quietly furious. “Harper was a _child_ , a child growing up in _your family_.” Riley blows out a breath. “This isn’t your damn house to throw stones in, Sloane, especially given how you walk around in the world and what you did two nights ago, as an adult woman fully aware of the consequences of her words and _not_ a terrified closeted teenager." Sloane opens her mouth but Riley keeps talking. "Was what Harper did inexcusable and unconscionable, did it ruin four fucking impressionable and formative years of my life? Of course. Did I pay for it in a decade of therapy and internalized self-hatred? Yep.” Riley rubs the side of her jaw. “Would I have done the same to her? No. But with the distance of years do I _get it_ , now, even if it was still wrong? Yes.” On the bar, Sloane sees Riley’s fist clench in her napkin. “Don’t even start with that shit. It’s my prerogative to judge Harper if I want to, but it certainly isn’t fucking yours.”

Sloane, who has felt herself recoiling more and more throughout Riley’s monologue, stares down at her lap, picks at her cuticles more where she hopes Riley can’t see them. “That isn’t what I meant,” she says, even though it sort of was. She hates that her voice comes out sounding less than even, although perhaps not enough that Riley notices.

“I hope it wasn’t,” Riley says, downing the rest of her wine. “Don’t try to police something you can’t possibly understand.” She motions to the bartender for her bill and clears her throat. “To answer what I think you were clumsily asking, I moved past it a long time ago.” Riley squints and pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s easier to find compassion for her as an adult now. And holding onto it would have just perpetuated the cycle of self-harm.”

Before she knows what she’s doing, Sloane is reaching out to touch Riley’s forearm, between her elbow and where the cuff of her jacket is rolled to expose the bones of her wrist. The wool is smooth underneath her fingertips; she thinks she feels Riley’s muscle twitch under her touch.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Riley says, staring at Sloane’s hand on her arm. “None of it has anything to do with you.”

“Maybe not,” Sloane says. “At least not directly.” She takes her hand back when the bartender appears with Riley’s receipt; Riley pulls a matte black credit card out of her wallet and hands it over without looking at the bill. She’s tapping her fingers against the wood of the bar again, Sloane notices, a mesmerizing tell: of impatience, or nerves, or something else entirely.

Riley’s card comes back in silence. Sloane feels something itchy and unsettling worm its way down into the back of her mind as Riley slides the card back into her wallet and begins to gather herself and her outerwear. The idea would have been ludicrous to her not an hour earlier, but now Sloane realizes, abruptly, that she is disappointed that Riley is leaving, despite their uncomfortable dynamics; she feels lit up, engaged, interested in what Riley is going to do next. 

Riley clears her throat. “Well, this conversation was probably the second-weirdest thing to happen to me the entire holiday,” she says, standing up. “To be clear,” she adds, “the weirdest is still watching Harper break a massive painting of Main Street over your head.” She raises an eyebrow at Sloane. “Somehow you’re involved in both incidents.”

“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf,” Sloane says, an unusual lilt in her voice. “Spontaneity. Surprises.”

Riley looks at her askance. “Something like that,” she says, shaking her head. “Bye, Sloane. Have a… good year, I guess. See you next Christmas.”

She leaves and Sloane watches her go, ducking into the restroom on her way out.

Later, looking back, Sloane will blame many things for what she does next: two glasses of wine on a stomach empty except for some potatoes; residual guilt about outing Harper that she’s maybe, sort of, hypothetically transferring onto Riley; disappointment at the loss of the only person to talk to her like a normal human being all day; the desire to not be left alone with her own thoughts; the dark red wine stain on Riley’s lower lip, just in the middle where it’s fullest, where her napkin hadn’t caught it.

She hesitates for no more than a minute before getting up to follow Riley into the bathroom. Riley is drying her hands on a paper towel.

“Honestly, what—” Riley says, which is all she gets out before Sloane is kissing her, going up on her toes just a little to get a better angle, not even caring if there’s anyone else in the restroom.

Objectively it’s a short kiss, no tongues and no teeth, and Riley just sort of… stands there for it. Her eyes are wide when Sloane pulls back, and she has a tiny smear of Sloane’s lipstick outside of her lip line. The image of it, coupled with the knowledge of what she’s just done, makes something hot and frantic slide down Sloane’s spine.

“Thank you for the potatoes,” Sloane says, which, what the fuck honestly, and then she does it: she flees, again, flat-out runs away from Riley Bennett.


	2. but i've been dreaming

Riley stares at herself in the grimy mirror. Were it not for the damning mark of petal-pink lipstick smudged on her face, she would be more likely to believe she had hallucinated the past five minutes (or honestly, the entire past hour) than she would be to believe what she knows to be true, which is that Sloane Caldwell just planted one on her in a public bathroom after the weirdest, tensest conversation Riley’s had all year, then turned on her heel and walked away.

What the fuck?

“Excuse me, are you waiting?” says an impatient voice behind her.

“No, sorry, go ahead,” Riley says, stepping aside so the woman can slip behind her into the stall. It breaks her reverie: Riley takes a paper towel and blots the lipstick off her lips, wiping away the red wine detritus while she’s at it. She feels jumpy and her brain is running in twenty different directions, one of which is definitely back to the bar where Sloane is undoubtedly perched once again, ankles crossed and wrists angled out and sipping her fucking white wine, unruffled and probably scrolling on her phone.

Riley can usually tell, is the thing. Sloane is far from the first straight woman to try it on with her, and Riley knows the signs: the over-the-top flirting and giggling, the hair twirling and gratuitous touching, and above all their delight in the danger of it, of playing with the forbidden, the excitement at the taboo.

Riley had gotten none of that from Sloane. Everything’s on a tight leash with her, everything comes out measured and considered, deliberate.

Was this deliberate? The alternative, that it was an accident, seems unlikely (Sloane followed her in here, for one thing). There is the possibility that Sloane is drunk or otherwise incapacitated, but graveyard shifts in the ER have taught Riley how to recognize intoxication, and Sloane wasn’t. Also, alcohol is a depressant; it lowers inhibitions and distorts judgment but it doesn’t give someone an entirely new personality. It just reveals what was there all along, more base and less polite.

In her pocket, Riley’s phone vibrates. It’s undoubtedly Abby and John, who have looped her into their text chain like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Riley is late to meet them at the Oxwood. Riley has half a mind to go back to the bar and crowd herself into Sloane Caldwell’s personal space instead, to demand an explanation or an answer or even to just return the favor of the kiss, to smell that perfume (spicy and woody, which was surprising; Riley would have expected white florals, Jo Malone honeysuckle, peony) again, to see how far Sloane would let her push it, push them.

She finds her backbone and leaves the bar without looking over her shoulder. The biting cold of the wind settles her a little on the short walk to the bar, but not enough.

“Hey, dude,” Abby says when Riley slides into the booth across from her, next to John. “What took you so long?”

 _Your fucking future sister-in-law accosted me in the bathroom and I can’t stop thinking about it,_ Riley doesn’t say. Instead she grabs at the third pint on the table and takes a long drink. “Got held up. Hey, John.”

“Hi,” John says, not looking up from his phone. Abby rolls her eyes at him.

“So what’s the occasion?” Riley asks, looking around: unsurprisingly, given the season, the bar is bustling with humanity of all types. Riley feels herself relax incrementally, lets the familiarity and solidarity and comfort of this place seep into her consciousness and ease her, center her, quiet her. It’s why she’d brought Abby here in the first place, only a few nights prior: not just her 99-percent certainty of Abby’s queerness, but also because Riley knew it’d offer the warmth and calm and welcome Abby so clearly needed, and so clearly wasn’t getting from anywhere else.

“We’re sending you off!” Abby says, raising her glass. “Seriously, man. I owe you so much for everything, I don’t think I’d have made it through this week without you. We couldn’t just let you leave without buying you a drink.”

“Several drinks,” John adds. He has looked up from his phone and the gaze he’s giving Riley now is serious. “Thank you for looking out for her while I wasn’t here.” It sounds like a joke, but Riley doesn’t think it is.

“Hey, I don’t need looking out for,” Abby says.

“You do,” John says easily. He clears his throat and holds Riley’s eyes; she feels the weight of it, hears what he isn’t saying.

After a beat Riley nods, feeling more touched than she expected. “Well, you’re certainly welcome,” she says, clinking her glass to Abby’s and John’s. “Thanks for livening up what is usually a boring, frustrating, gossipy, and extremely straight holiday visit.”

“Merry fucking Christmas,” Abby mutters, and John snorts.

“So, ah,” Riley asks, treading slightly carefully, “how are things chez Caldwell?”

John sighs dramatically, and Abby tilts her head and stares at her beer. “Um. Awkward. But Harper and I are at least sleeping in the same bed now, so that’s an improvement. Ted and Tipper are…” She rubs her face. “I’m sure you can just imagine how they are. Christmas, secrets, the campaign, all these weird little asides and gestures I don’t understand. Jane is Jane and Sloane is Sloane, but Eric has been pretty great actually.” Riley is very proud that she does not react at all when Abby says Sloane’s name.

“Eric _is_ great,” John says. “As is Jane. I am going to get her book published if it kills me.”

Riley raises an eyebrow, but that’s a story for a different day. “And what about Harper?”

Abby shrugs. “Things are… weird. We had a long talk last night, probably the first of many.” She coughs and fidgets with her necklace, the one that matches Harper’s (and honestly, the fact that not a single Caldwell clocked the _literal matching necklaces_ is still blowing Riley’s mind a little). “I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I’m willing to try.”

“Therapy is what’s going to happen,” John mutters. “Honestly, I might just book you an appointment with Jeanine myself. Call it a New Years gift.”

Riley smiles into her beer. She’d suspected, when John had shown up at the White Elephant party obviously to rescue Abby, but now she knows: John is Abby’s rock, her port in the storm, and listening to the two of them snipe and bicker and so obviously love one another makes her ache for her own little crew back in Baltimore.

“Well, I wish you the best,” Riley says, and she means it. “Hopefully next year is a little less dramatic.”

“With this family? Don’t count on it,” Abby says.

“Maybe next year _I’ll_ get caught in the closet with Eric,” John says brightly. “Or Connor. Or both.”

Abby shakes her head. “Maybe Jane or Sloane will get a new boyfriend, take the heat off me a little.” Riley snorts a little beer out of her nose, but she doesn’t think Abby or John notices. “It’d be great to not be the only plus-one next year, actually. I can be the old, wise, experienced one, and instruct the newcomer in the obscure rituals of the Caldwell family and white-elephant gifting.” Riley coughs into her hand.

“My money’s on Jane,” John says. “More likely than finding someone who’s able to handle Sloane.”

“There’s probably someone who can, somewhere in the universe. I think you either need to be, like, super fucking chill like Eric, or just as Type-A and toppy as she is,” Abby says. Riley chokes again and this time Abby does notice. “Okay, _what_ is happening to you?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Riley says, fishing in her pocket for a napkin and coming up with the paper towel she’d use to wipe Sloane’s lipstick off her face. Of course. “Just went down the wrong pipe.” She coughs again and blows her nose, avoiding the part of the towel with the lipstick. Jesus Christ.

Abby leans back into the leather of the booth and regards her, shrewd; Riley doesn’t think they know one another quite well enough yet for Abby to intuit what’s going on with Riley, but it makes her nervous nevertheless.

God, this is wild. A woman Riley barely knows, who made an extremely public spectacle of herself and her entire family not two days ago, takes Riley by surprise one time with one combative, aggressive, intriguing conversation and one kiss, and an hour later Riley is choking on her beer. It’s farcical.

“Uh, incoming,” Abby mutters with a jerk of her chin and a blatant once-over of whoever is approaching their booth, effectively distracted from whatever she was looking at Riley for. Riley turns in time to see a tall, dark-haired woman in a leather jacket slide a napkin onto the table in front of her.

“Hey,” says the stranger, with a slow smile. Riley feels her eyebrows rise, feels the hair on her arms stand up a little; the woman is stunning, brash and confident with major no-nonsense dykey vibes rolling off her. Riley’s pulse quickens despite herself. “Thought you might need this. And in case you’re interested,” the woman says, before she fucking _winks_ at Riley and walks back to the bar.

“Wow,” says John. Riley knows without even looking at it that the napkin has a phone number on it. “Old school. I haven’t seen that in a long time, I’m impressed.”

“Holy shit, man,” Abby says. She looks over at the stranger again and makes an appreciative face. “She is super fucking hot. Like, damn.”

Riley takes the napkin, folding it in half and then in half again before sliding it into her pocket. She has an early start and a long drive tomorrow, but you never know.

\------

Riley doesn’t text the stranger from the Oxwood. Instead, ensconced in the twin bed of her childhood bedroom with her mother’s weird porcelain figurine collection staring at her from every available flat surface, she finds herself awake at 1:30 in the morning with her finger hovering over the “follow” button on Sloane Caldwell’s Instagram profile, which is, of course, private.

“Get a fucking grip,” she mutters to herself. She taps the button, triple-checks to make sure her alarm is set for tomorrow, and throws the phone onto her nightstand in disgust. For good measure, she rolls over so she can’t see whether it lights up, which it does, ten minutes later with Riley’s follow accepted, and a follow-back request from Sloane.

The next morning, too early and before she’s had enough coffee, Riley opens Instagram’s direct messages and sends one to Sloane.

__

_Congratulations, you’re now in the top three weirdest events of Christmas_

_I can’t imagine what you’re talking about_

_Have a safe drive home, good luck with the internal organs_

Riley bites her lip and grins to herself. This is bad, but it’s also _delicious_.

\------

“Hang on,” Tiff says, blowing across the top of the battery acid the hospital cafeteria passes off as coffee. It’s already Riley’s second day back but it’s been so insane they haven’t been able to debrief until now. “So this… let me see if I have it. The straight, married-with-children, older sister of the ex-girlfriend who outed you in high school outed said ex-girlfriend—her sister!—at a Christmas party in front of the entire town, and then two days later made out with you in a public restroom?”

“They’re getting divorced,” Riley says, picking at her stale croissant. “And we didn’t make out. She kissed me, I just sort of… let her.” 

Tiff stares at her. “And now you’re like, what, engaging in some sort of weird sexually frustrated flirting via Instagram DM?”

Riley clears her throat. “Yeah, fine. Basically.” 

Tiff holds out her hand, imperious. “Alright, give it here.” Riley hesitates. “I’m not going to read your private messages, god. I just wanna look at her photos.”

Riley, of course, has already scrolled all the way through Sloane’s feed, all the way down to the bottom (the first picture is her wedding day, which Riley finds sort of weird, in an abstract way). Sloane doesn’t post much, fewer than 200 photos over a decade, and what she does is carefully curated, mostly travel, the occasional selfie. 

Riley hands her phone over. “If you accidentally like anything, I will cut off your fingers and send them to medical waste so nobody can ever reattach them.” 

Tiff ignores her, scrolling down and down and down with one finger. “Huh,” she says, looking up at Riley. “Very… suburban white lady.” She tilts her head. “Not your usual type.” Riley stares back at her; it’s not like she’s wrong, after all. Tiff is as straight as they come (to Riley’s ongoing disappointment, because her usual type is basically Tiff) but she has a perplexingly fine-tuned grasp of queer norms.

“I’m branching out.”

Tiff just shakes her head and goes back to scrolling. “Okay, hang on though,” she says after a moment, “what the hell?” She taps on a photo and turns the phone around to Riley. “What is this?”

Riley looks at the photo. “Oh, she and her husband make gift baskets. Or, like, curated gift experiences, or something.”

“What? As… a living? Is that what this is? A gift basket?”

“Yes,” Riley says, and loses it at the expression on Tiff’s face.

\------

On New Year’s Eve, right as the clock trips over to midnight, Riley receives: one (1) blurry selfie of Abby, Harper, and John wearing stupid hats and unfocused grins, accompanied by a text string of fireworks emojis; three (3) pecks from her fellow residents (Tiff, Alex, and Sarah, the last of which Riley has been on-again-off-again hooking up with for the past four months, mostly as stress relief); a laggy FaceTime call from her younger sister, who’s three hours behind in California; and two (2) inscrutable message from Sloane. They’re still communicating via Instagram, which Tiff is giving her endless shit for.

_Happy New Year_

_Here’s to turning over a new leaf_

Okay, fine, the first message is pretty standard, but it’s the second one that sticks in Riley’s mind, makes her wonder.

\------

December slips into January slips into February and Riley feels like she spends most of it asleep on her feet. Abby visits and they have coffee one particularly frigid afternoon when she’s in town for some event at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and it’s a bright spot in the otherwise monotonous progression of days. Riley continues to sporadically text Sloane, exhaustion and frustration making her candid and forthright when she wouldn’t usually be; she drops in little pieces of her life amidst the posturing and weird defensiveness that still sits between them. Sloane does the same, messages Riley a photo of the twins at a birthday party, mentions her family law attorney once (by mistake?), sends a link to a _New Yorker_ article about a dermatologist and next-generation anti-aging serums with the caption “Just think, this could have been you.” It fucks with Riley’s head a little, the weird, stilted not-friendship they’re cultivating. She doesn’t really know why she keeps texting Sloane back, doesn’t know why she shivers every time Instagram sends her a DM notification, doesn’t know why Sloane is even texting her in the first place.

Once, drunk at a party for Sarah's birthday, Riley types out “Why did you kiss me at Christmas?” into the chat box. She stares at it, at the harsh black-and-white text of the question swimming and blurring before her eyes, long enough that Tiff notices.

“What are you doing, give me that,” Tiff says, taking her phone away before Riley can do anything absurd like actually send the message, because she is a good friend. “God, you are a disaster,” Tiff says, thumb held down over the backspace button, but her eyes are kind and her expression is fond.

\------

In March Riley uses one of her precious vacation days to take the train down to D.C. for Annie’s baby shower. Annie is Riley’s oldest friend and the only person from high school she’s voluntarily kept in touch with, so even though Riley hates the gendered and transactional ordeal of any type of “shower,” baby or bridal or otherwise, she buys something from the registry, puts on her least-severe dress, and treks to Penn Station to catch the 10:15 Acela.

On one level it’s what she expects: a herd of women in Easter-colored dresses, Annie monstrously pregnant and unable to drink any of the mimosas everyone else is guiltily guzzling, pink balloons (it’s a girl) and pink streamers and pink-frosted cupcakes with pink sprinkles, and everyone cooing at the tower of baby presents and gratuitously over-sharing childbirth stories. Riley did her OB-GYN rotation just like everyone else in her class so she’s heard it all and then some, but the gender-segregation and heteronormativity of the ritual grates, just a little, nevertheless. It’s what she expects.

What she doesn’t expect is Sloane Caldwell in the corner of the room, standing there amidst the plates of cookies and vases of (pink) flowers and carafes of coffee and bottles of champagne, wearing a burgundy sheath dress and a tense expression.

Her eyes snap to Riley’s the minute Riley steps across the threshold, but before Riley can do anything more than raise both her eyebrows Annie’s mom appears, grabbing onto Riley’s arm and hugging her in delight. Riley has always loved Kathy, has always loved Annie’s entire family actually; when the whole Harper thing had happened, freshman year, Annie had stuck by Riley and Kathy had treated her just the same, with a friendly welcome to her home after school for homework sessions and sleepovers with no judgments and no raised eyebrows and no whispers, unlike everyone else in town. 

“Hi, Kathy, it’s so good to see you, this is wonderful,” Riley murmurs, leaning into the familiar embrace and smelling the familiar perfume and feeling more emotional than she thought she would.

“Thank you for coming, dear, I know you’re so busy,” Kathy says, businesslike but eyes bright with happiness when she pulls back to look at Riley, running a thumb along her cheekbone the way she used to when Riley was fifteen. “You look lovely as always, we’re so happy you made it. Come on, come say hi to Annie, she’ll be so excited to see you,” and Annie is, squealing with joy at Riley’s presence, bumping into Riley’s abdomen with her own massive one as they hug. Riley loses herself a little in the shared delight of Annie’s family; she bends down to kiss Annie’s grandma where she’s beaming up at them from her wheelchair and pours Kathy a third glass of champagne and forgets all about Sloane, for a few moments.

Eventually Riley drifts over to the coffee, because one mimosa before 2pm is enough for her and she has to work tomorrow. Riley can circulate a party like the best of them and she does so now, tiny china cup of coffee balanced in her hand, nodding at some faces she vaguely recognizes and many she doesn’t at all, until she arrives at her intended destination: a few feet away from Sloane, who is smiling through her teeth and chatting with Annie’s cousin and another woman Riley doesn’t recognize. Sloane doesn’t acknowledge Riley’s presence at all but she angles her body toward Riley, just a little, as Riley approaches, moves slightly away from the conversation circle just enough as Riley steps over.

“Sloane.”

“Riley,” Sloane murmurs with a sideways glance, lifting her champagne flute to her lips. Riley notices pale pink nail polish and, interestingly, no wedding ring.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Riley says, keeping her eyes on Sloane’s face, conscious of all the ears around them.

“Jason and I were best friends during school,” Sloane says, as if Riley should know this fact. “I was at their wedding. As were you, if I recall, as Annie’s bridesmaid.”

Riley thinks back but she truly doesn’t recall; Annie’s was the first wedding Riley had ever been in and the whole thing is a blur of wine and tequila and dancing and early-twenties hormones and, Riley remembers with a wince, a regrettable hookup with Annie’s college roommate, whose name is now escaping her. She doesn’t remember Sloane being there at all.

“Still, this is a long way for you to come for one afternoon.”

Sloane clears her throat. “Actually, I live here now,” she says, staring down into her champagne rather than look at Riley’s face. “In D.C.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Somehow, during all their weird half-conversations and text message riddles, Sloane hadn’t told her about the move. Riley knows that if she chases that particular thought to its conclusion she won’t be able to concentrate on anything else, so she tables it, makes a note to revisit it later.

“Yes, well.” Sloane looks out across the room. “Eric and I sold the business, it was just simpler with the divorce. He moved here for work, and.” She thins her lips; Riley sees just a thread of tension in her brow. “It’s best for the kids, to have us both in the same city.” 

Ouch.

“So what are you doing here, if you sold the business?”

Sloane shrugs, a small expression of distaste hidden in the corner of her mouth. Her lipstick is dark burgundy this time, almost matching and almost clashing with the color of her dress and somehow doing neither, somehow complementing it instead. “What do attorneys do in D.C.? Lobbying.”

“Ah.” Riley nods; she doesn’t really have a follow-up to that. “Well, ah, congratulations on the move. If it’s… what you want, I guess.”

“What I want,” Sloane echos softly. She catches Riley’s eyes and it’s searing. 

“It’s not?” Riley’s voice comes out almost even, which is a minor miracle.

Sloane lowers her eyes down to Riley’s mouth, just briefly. “It is, in a way,” is all she says. Jesus Christ, Riley _cannot_ deal with this cryptic bullshit right now.

“I don’t follow.”

Sloane shrugs again. “Life is complex,” she says. “As a divorced woman in her late thirties I find there are many things I want, not all of which are available to me, and some of which are mutually exclusive.” Riley sighs and wishes, fervently, that her coffee cup contained a shot of whiskey instead of just coffee. “And you?” Sloane asks, ignoring Riley’s obvious irritation because _of course she does_. “How is your residency progressing?”

“It’s fine,” Riley says, wanting to rub her forehead and barely refraining. She clears her throat, pulls it together. “It's busy, I'm not sleeping very much. It’s challenging, but enjoyable.”

“Sounds like you enjoy a challenge,” Sloane says.

That’s when Riley loses it: she laughs, harsh and too loud, and Sloane’s eyes flare. “Jesus Christ,” Riley mutters. “You’re unbelievable.” She clears her throat; now is the time to leave, to remove herself from this situation before it gets worse. “It was good to see you, Sloane,” Riley says, shaking her head. “You, ah.” She allows herself the briefest indulgence of looking Sloane Caldwell up and down, subtly, flicking her eyes over the tailored nip of the dress at her waist, the classy but alluring side slit in the fitted pencil skirt, the fuck-you cocktail ring on the index finger of her right hand where it’s resting at her hip. “You look nice.”

Riley steps away, plasters on a fake smile for Annie’s aunt whose name she has already forgotten, and lets the low murmur of gossiping women overtake her.

A few moments later, her phone vibrates in her pocket.

_Upstairs bathroom, ten minutes_

Riley looks over to where Sloane is still standing, where she’s sliding her phone back into her leather Strathberry clutch. Riley shouldn’t; it’s immature, irresponsible, unnecessary.

Sloane slips out of the room five minutes later, and five minutes after that, Riley finds herself ascending the stairs after her.


	3. midnight, getting uptight

Sloane had assumed Riley would be invited to the baby shower, of course, but she hadn’t known whether or not she’d come. On the one hand, D.C. is only a half-hour train ride from Baltimore, but on the other hand she knows Riley works weekends and keeps an unusual schedule. Over the past three months Riley’s messages to Sloane have arrived at all hours: Riley is starting a shift when Sloane is sitting down to lunch, taking a nap as Sloane drives the twins to school, buying a coffee as Sloane is pouring herself a glass of wine. 

If you had asked Sloane whether or not she was _hoping_ Riley would come, she couldn’t have told you. (Fortunately for her, it would never have crossed anyone’s mind to even consider the question.) Nevertheless, on the morning of the baby shower she finds herself choosing her clothes carefully, stepping into a dress that’s lightweight but structured, that feels alluring but a little like armor. The slip of the wool-silk blend is soothing across the tops of her thighs, along the open curve of the neckline, over the satin and lace of her bra. She slides tasteful pearl studs into her ears but leaves her wedding rings in the dish on her vanity, as she does daily now; she dots perfume along her collarbone, toes into buttery-soft goatskin pumps, leans forward into the mirror to layer Chanel over her lips and then blots it with a tissue to make the color look softer, lived in. 

D.C. weather has meant she’s had to stop flat-ironing her hair: the moisture in the air makes it frizz, and it curls uncooperatively against her temples and down her back no matter how much product she uses. It drives her crazy. For work she usually just pins it back and up in a chignon, but this morning she leaves it loose, lets it hang soft and wavy across her collarbone, over the tops of her shoulders like a caress.

She’s fidgeting with it now, staring at her reflection in the mirror of the upstairs bathroom of Annie’s aunt’s house. The bathroom is massive, with both a shower and a bathtub, plus a double-sink leathered marble countertop; Sloane recognizes the milky translucence of zellige Clé tiles from the interior design blogs she reads late at night to lull herself to sleep. The background sounds of the party downstairs are muted, muffled by distance and the closed door.

She doesn’t know what possessed her to text Riley earlier, but it’s too late now. Sloane had fully planned on showing up to the shower, being polite to Riley if Riley happened to also show up, eating some canapés and making mindless small talk, and then leaving to pick Magnus and Matilda up from their playdate having done her social duty. Instead she’s here, in someone else’s bathroom, tapping her fingers against the countertop and half hoping Riley doesn’t follow her, half-hoping she does.

She has no idea what this _is_ , is the problem, and it’s terrifying. She doesn’t think Riley has any agenda, not really; maybe she’d thought so at first, had decided that it’d be the most likely explanation for Riley’s follow request and DMs, but it’s become increasingly clear over the past three months that Riley has barely enough energy to feed herself and do her own laundry, much less orchestrate a long con to trick Sloane into—something, feeling something, doing something, for some nefarious unknown reason. No, it’s Sloane’s internal circular spiral that’s terrifying, that’s making her take uncharacteristic risks and say uncharacteristic things. She wants to talk to Riley, desperately, wants Riley to walk through that bathroom door right now, and she doesn’t know why; she also really, really doesn’t want to talk to Riley, wants to leave this room and slink back down to the party, wants to avoid Riley’s eyes and turn off her phone and slide back into the persona of the woman she was a year ago, before the divorce, before Christmas. 

It’s too late, because someone is tapping at the door.

“Come in,” Sloane says, pitching her voice so it carries enough but not too much.

It’s Riley: she steps inside and closes the door behind her, leans back against it looking nonchalant but wary. Sloane turns to face her, hip pressing against the cool of the countertop. They’re probably eight feet apart, and it feels like not enough but too much at the same time. Riley tilts her head, just slightly, and regards Sloane, and Sloane feels herself squirm under the gaze.

“Well?” Riley says, after several beats, after the silence has stretched between them into something almost tangible, something thick and ponderous like taffy.

“Well what?”

A muscle in Riley’s jaw ticks. “Well, here I am. You’re the one who summoned me.”

“It was your choice to come,” Sloane says. The problem is that she doesn’t have an answer for Riley; she doesn’t know what she’s doing or why she’s doing it, and she’s stalling.

“It was,” Riley says, but the look she’s giving Sloane now is puzzled rather than irritated. “Look, what is going on with you?” Sloane raises an eyebrow and Riley shrugs. “I’m tired of riddles and half-answers, so I thought I’d try being direct.” Sloane feels herself smile, a quick and dangerous little thing; she turns to face her reflection in the mirror, rather than face Riley. From this angle, in the glass, she can see Riley looking at her.

“I’ve had an eventful three months,” Sloane says.

Riley turns a quarter turn so that she can meet Sloane’s gaze in the mirror. “Apparently. You didn’t mention that you were moving.”

“I didn’t want to,” Sloane admits. “Move, that is. I didn’t want to move here, I’ve never liked D.C.” She doesn’t look at Riley as she says it; she’s never said it aloud to anyone at all. “But.”

“But it’s easier for the kids,” Riley finishes softly.

“Yes.”

“Do you ever do something just for yourself, just because you want to?”

“Sometimes.” Sloane bites her lip. “Do you?”

Riley smiles to herself, and it’s a smile Sloane hasn’t seen before: wide, confident, dangerous. It sends a flicker of—something across her skin. “Sometimes.”

Sloane looks down at her hands. They shouldn’t stay up here; someone will notice, eventually.

“Why am I here, Sloane?” Riley asks abruptly, turning to face her head-on. “Why are we…” she makes a little gesture with her hands. “What do you want?” Riley takes a step toward her and Sloane feels herself step back, unconsciously. Something complicated and unreadable chases itself across Riley’s face, and whatever it is, Sloane hates it. “Sorry,” Riley says, lifting her hand to rub at the back of her neck. “Look, I—there are, like, four or five ways to interpret this, and I’m usually better at it, but I can’t read you.”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” Sloane says, and Riley must hear the honesty in her voice because she raises both eyebrows, looking surprised.

“Okay,” Riley says. “I’m just trying to figure out what you want.”

Sloane shakes her head. It’s becoming painfully clear, to her and probably also to Riley, that she doesn’t know what she wants. She sighs, suddenly exhausted. “You know, you—you surprised me, at Christmas,” she says after a beat. 

Riley laughs. “Um, same,” she says, and Sloane feels herself blush, just a little, but enough that Riley probably sees.

“I surprised myself, too.”

Sloane takes a breath and walks toward Riley, stopping just short of arm’s length. “I didn’t tell you I was moving because I didn’t know what it would mean.” Baltimore is only half an hour from D.C.; she doesn’t say it, but she thinks Riley probably gets it all the same.

Riley breathes in, loud enough for Sloane to hear. “It’s scarier when it’s in person, isn’t it?” she says, voice soft.

“Yes, it is,” Sloane says, even though she’s not sure what they’re talking about anymore.

Riley slides her mouth to the side, holding Sloane’s gaze for a long moment. “You know, I wasn’t really sure what to expect coming up here, but it was definitely not this,” she says eventually, sounding a little rueful.

“What were you expecting?” Sloane asks, not really wanting to know the answer but morbidly curious nevertheless.

Riley laughs to herself. “Oh god, I don’t know. On a scale of one to ten I’d say one would be, like, you yelling at me for checking you out just now, and ten would be a repeat of the last time we were in a bathroom together.”

Sloane clears her throat, skin prickling from Riley’s forthright acknowledgement of both the searing once-over from earlier and the fated bathroom kiss. “Ah, yes, that.” She taps her fingertips on the counter: once, twice, three times. “I should apologize for accosting you. It won’t happen again.”

“Hey,” Riley says, and something in her voice makes Sloane meet her gaze; Riley’s eyes are warm, a little knowing, a little playful. “I didn’t say I minded. I mean, I still came up here, didn’t I?”

Sloane shrugs one shoulder; her brain runs wild with the implication of _that_ little statement. “Even so. It’s always preferable to have the other person’s participation as well, you know.”

Riley tries to hide her smile, but Sloane sees it. “I find it hard to believe that’s a problem you encounter frequently.” 

It’s back now, thank god, that same feeling from Christmas at the bar; Sloane feels like she’s lighting up, gaining energy from this push-pull, this back and forth between them.

“Not usually,” Sloane says, striving for nonchalance. “Just the once, actually.”

“Well, I suspect that it won’t be an issue for you in the future,” Riley says. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” Sloane murmurs, and there it is—Riley is smiling outright at her now, a pleased sideways smile that’s almost a smirk but not quite.

“I look forward to hearing about it,” Riley says. “Let me know if I can help in any way.” She ducks her head and looks at Sloane, clears her throat. “To be clear, that was me putting the ball in your court.”

“So I presumed,” Sloane says. She steps forward three more steps, until her chest is barely brushing Riley’s; Riley’s lips are parted just slightly, just enough for Sloane to see a tiny flick of her tongue. “You know, you look really nice too,” Sloane says, trailing the tips of her fingers down Riley’s arm, making her shiver. “Royal blue suits you.” And then she’s pressing forward, pressing up and kissing Riley for the second time, gripping her biceps, bodies flush.

It’s a thrill, it’s heady, it’s a mindfuck; Riley responds, easy and sure, true to her word. She bites at Sloane’s lower lip and slides her tongue into her mouth, confident and proprietary, one hand on Sloane’s hip and one hand on her jaw. It’s been awhile since Sloane has been kissed like this, really, since her marriage with Eric morphed from a romantic partnership into something more like co-parenting roommates in the years after the twins were born. Sloane finds she’s hungry for it now, desperate. She wonders whether Riley can feel the twitches and quivers of her muscles under thin layers of fabric and skin, whether Riley can sense the alchemical change in her body, the blooming combination of desire and arousal and anticipation.

Riley’s hands are roving now but she keeps them polite: she runs one through Sloane’s hair, messy and loose around her shoulders, and trails the other down the side of her throat to rest on her collarbone, presses just enough that Sloane feels it, insistent like a promise. Sloane is less polite, and she leans more into Riley, needy; she walks her fingers up Riley’s side, up along each rib until, feeling daring, she can graze the side of Riley’s breast, just soft. 

Riley breaks the kiss eventually, turning her face away so she can catch her breath, but she doesn’t move out of Sloane’s hold, the weird little half-embrace they’re sharing. Sloane presses another kiss to Riley’s neck—no teeth, just lips and tongue, she’s not an idiot—and inhales, breathes in the clean scent of Riley’s skin. 

It makes Riley shiver again. “Jesus,” she murmurs, fingers flexing involuntarily, and her voice is low, rough like Sloane hasn’t heard it before.

“Mmm,” is all Sloane says. She looks up at Riley’s face, at the flush high on her cheeks, the smudges of their lipsticks together on her mouth, blurred like watercolors. She lifts her hand to press her thumb to Riley’s lower lip. “You’ve got—”

“So do you,” is all Riley says before she bites at Sloane’s thumb, takes it in between her teeth so she can run her tongue along the side of it, across the pad of it, holding Sloane’s gaze as she does. Sloane has to catch her breath at the feeling, the heat and immediacy of the desire coiling in her and the knowledge that she could have this; Riley is offering.

“Tease,” Sloane hears herself murmur.

Riley bites her thumb again before leaning in, crowding Sloane against the sink. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Sloane stares up at her, tilts her chin out just enough so that Riley knows she’s not cowed.

It’s insane. This is insane. They’re at a baby shower, for god’s sake.

Riley must be thinking the same thing because eventually she steps back, clearing her throat. “Ah, not to ruin—whatever this is— but we should probably…” she says, and she sounds regretful.

“We should,” Sloane murmurs, even though the hair is still standing up on her arms, even though she would really rather slide back into Riley’s personal space, see what other kinds of reactions she can get. Instead she exhales and turns to face herself in the mirror once again. “Oh, god.”

They make quite the pair, makeup smudged and hair mussed; the collar of Sloane’s dress is uneven, and Riley has a smear of lipstick on her neck. Riley snorts and catches Sloane’s eyes in the mirror as she passes her a tissue from the box on the counter. Sloane wets it and dabs at her mouth, almost regretful to erase the evidence.

“I like your hair like this,” Riley says, after a moment, wiping Sloane’s lipstick off her neck. “Wavy, I mean. Not so straight, more relaxed.”

“Thank you,” Sloane says. She finishes cleaning her mouth and fishes her lipstick out of her clutch, leaning forward into the mirror to touch up. Riley’s gaze tracks the movement of the bullet as she drags it down along her lower lip, presses it up against her cupid’s bow. “Are you trying to make a joke?”

“What?” Riley frowns, and then rolls her eyes. “Oh god, you’re awful.”

Sloane shrugs, snapping her clutch closed. She chances another look at Riley, head on, and that’s when she sees it: more evidence, an errant missed smudge of color where Riley’s jaw meets her ear. Something wild and possessive flares in her stomach and is pleased to see it, to see the mark.

But she can’t leave it.

“Hang on,” she says, grabbing another tissue. Riley stills and lets her, lets Sloane rub the slightly-scratchy square along the angle of her jaw until all the evidence is wiped away. Before she can drop her hand Riley catches it, brings it up to her lips so she can kiss the base of it, the lines of Sloane’s palm, the tips of her fingers.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Sloane feels caught, pinned by something as simple as a favor, as banal as the shred of disposable paper tissue crinkled in her fingers.

After a long moment Riley drops her hand. Sloane checks her watch; they’ve been up here for maybe eight minutes, probably not long enough for anyone to have noticed their absence. She clears her throat. “I’ll go down first. Wait a few minutes before coming after me.”

Riley raises an eyebrow. “So we’re just… not going to talk about this.”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

Riley blinks at her. “I… guess not.” She tilts her head. “Are you okay?”

What a question. “Yes.” Riley continues to stare at her. “Good heavens. Yes, I am fine. I’m not going to leave this room and immediately melt down into a crisis, or whatever else you’re thinking.” It’s not untrue; if Sloane melts down into a crisis, it will be later, in private.

“Okay,” Riley says eventually, still looking at Sloane with just a little too much knowledge in her eyes. “I’ll see you down there, then.”

\------

“How was the shower?”

It’s six hours later and Sloane is staring into a glass of wine sitting at Eric’s kitchen island, shoes off, jewelry and watch corralled into a tiny gleaming pile on the counter. He’d been cooking when Sloane had arrived with the twins and it’d been easy to linger for a few minutes, to settle in, to let the familiarity of his presence calm her. They’re better like this, as friends and co-parents rather than romantic partners, but Sloane still cares for Eric, still wants his advice and wonders how he is, and Eric still knows her better than anyone else in the world. Even when they fight, even when the old hurts of blame and past feelings rise to the surface and make them cruel to one another, Sloane trusts him.

She’s lucky, she knows, but sometimes when she’s at her loneliest, when the twins have been away from her for almost a week and it’s a Friday night and her bitterness at work hasn’t yet faded, she wishes she could hate him, she wishes she could blame him for her regret and her solitude and her dissatisfaction. It might make it easier, she thinks, though it would probably just poison her from the inside out.

“Sloane?”

“What?” She looks up at Eric: he’s wearing a stained apron (that she thinks may have been a wedding present, actually) and mis-matched socks and his glasses, holding an eggy spatula and looking at her expectantly. The kids have already eaten and are playing upstairs so it’s just the two of them, easy and familiar like soft warm flannel.

“How was the shower?” he repeats.

“Oh. Fine,” Sloane says, shaking herself. “I talked to Wendy, Jason’s mom, you remember her from the wedding.” Eric shrugs; he definitely does not remember Wendy. “It was nice. Made me remember the shower your aunt threw me, when I was pregnant with the twins.”

“That’s good.” Eric goes back to stirring. “Oh, did you get the form from Matilda’s teacher for the field trip?”

“I left it on the table,” Sloane says. “I signed it already, so just make sure she takes it to school on Monday.”

“Great, thanks,” Eric says absently, mincing parsley now. Sloane takes a sip of her wine.

“Riley Bennett was there.”

“What?” Eric says, in the tone of voice that has always driven Sloane crazy, the tone that says he’s not really listening. 

“Riley Bennett was at the shower today.”

“Oh,” Eric says. “Who… is that?”

“Harper’s friend from high school,” Sloane says, gnawing on her lip. “She and her parents come to Christmas Eve every year, you’d recognize her.”

Eric just hums. Sloane tilts her wine glass from side to side, watching the liquid glimmer in the kitchen light. Two hours ago Riley had DMed her with a phone number and the message _“I think we can graduate to real texting now, don’t you?”_. Sloane hasn’t texted her yet, but now, fortified with half a glass of pinot noir, she picks up her phone and thumbs open iMessage.

_It was good to see you today_

It’s not witty or flirty or clever or revolutionary but Sloane feels too wrung out to come up with anything better. She puts her phone down, leaves it face up next to her on the counter, and picks at her thumbnail as she stares at the dark screen.

“Are you okay?” Eric has his full attention on her now, eyes focused on her hands. The picking is a tell, a nervous habit that Sloane has worked to break over the years, and these days it only emerges when she’s extremely distracted or conflicted. As Eric knows very well.

Sloane hates him sometimes.

“I’m fine,” Sloane says, sitting on one hand and picking up her wine glass with the other.

“You sure?” Eric’s eyes are shrewd. Sloane stares at the counter, torn. Her phone remains dark.

“I kissed her,” she says eventually, blurts the words out to the granite.

“What?”

“I kissed Riley Bennett.” Sloane breathes out, deeply. It’s done.

“What, at the… baby shower?” The bewilderment in Eric’s voice almost makes her laugh, despite everything.

“Yes. And also over Christmas,” she adds, and finally manages to look up at Eric. He’s staring at her, forehead wrinkled, eyebrows up.

“Okay,” he says, after a beat. He reaches over to turn the heat off the stove, even though from what Sloane can tell the dinner is only half-done. He grabs his own wine and leans onto the counter across from her. “So, are you… dating her?”

“No,” Sloane says. “We’re… texting.” She looks at her phone again.

“You’re texting,” Eric repeats flatly. “You’re telling me that _texting_ and two kisses have made you all,” he gestures in her direction with his wine. “Like this?”

Sloane glares at him. “Like what?”

“You’re…” Eric shrugs. “Like an irritated bird. Tense. Twitchy. Ruffled.” He clears his throat. “Unsettled, affronted, nervous. Should I go on?”

“An _irritated bird_?”

Eric tries to hide his grin but she knows him just as well as he knows her, and she sees it. “That’s always how I’ve mentally described it to myself, when you get like this.”

“I don’t know why I married you,” Sloane mutters.

“Yes you do,” Eric says, easy. “Well, I’m glad you’re starting to… well, not date, I guess, but… text.” His face is serious but Sloane suspects that, somewhere deep inside, he is laughing at her. She starts to pick at her cuticle again, willpower exhausted. “Hey,” Eric says, voice kind, and he reaches out to take her hands. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be flippant. But truly, I’m glad you… have someone.” He squeezes her hands and then steps back to re-light the stove. “You know, I was terrified when I started dating Paula, when I started even  _ thinking _ about it,” he says conversationally. He looks over at Sloane briefly. “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sloane says, whispers really. She clears her throat. “It feels like the stakes are so much higher, now.”

“I know,” Eric says. “And, I mean, it’s true in some ways. We’re not in our twenties anymore, we have the kids, we have mortgages and careers and obligations to people other than ourselves.” He shrugs. “But I think I got too caught up in all that, at the beginning of it. I freaked myself out. And the truth is that later on all of those factors  _ will _ make everything more complicated. But at the beginning? When you’re just trying to figure out if you’re compatible with someone, if you click?” Eric picks up the spatula again. “That part can still be low-stakes. It can still be fun, it doesn’t have to be life or death or an immediate long-term commitment or a declaration or a statement. It doesn’t have to be scary. And if it grows into something more, then you deal with it.” 

“Obviously there’s more to it than that, though,” Sloane says. “With her being a woman.”

Eric shrugs. “Not necessarily.” The look he gives her is  _ very _ knowing. “Or, I guess, only if you make it.”

Sloane sighs. “You don’t understand.”

“Maybe not,” Eric says, sounding unbothered. “I know you, though, and I see what you’re doing. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it needs to be, Sloane.”

Sloane knows he’s right; self-sabotage is a time-honored tradition among the Caldwell women.

“Do you like her?”

Sloane looks at him over the rim of her wine glass. “What are we, in middle school? I barely know her.”

“Well, you know her well enough to kiss her twice, apparently, and well enough that she’s got you all tangled up in knots in my kitchen, drinking my wine.” Sloane looks away. “Hey, I don’t mind. I’m just saying.” Eric clears his throat. “Also, the fact that you’re avoiding my question is telling.”

Sloane really, really hates him, but also really loves him. “I… she intrigues me,” she says, eventually.

Eric makes a considering face. “Well, given that you find most people incredibly dull or not worth your time, that says a lot.” 

Sloane wrinkles her nose. “I’m discerning.”

“You are,” Eric agrees, getting plates down from the cabinet. “Can she keep up with you?”

“More than,” Sloane mutters, before she can think better of it. 

“Well then. Another rarity. The plot thickens,” Eric says. He slides a plate in front of Sloane, who up until this point has not realized that he was making dinner also for her. It’s a veggie omelette, an old Eric standard from their law school days, and it makes Sloane’s heart ache a little, in nostalgia.

“Thank you,” she says, feeling touched. Eric hands her a fork and sits down next to her at the island. “You didn’t need to.”

“Well, I assumed you hadn’t eaten with the kids,” he says.

“God, no,” Sloane says. “You know Chrissy’s mom doesn’t feed them anything but pizza, tater tots, and steamed vegetables smothered in velveeta.” Eric shudders.

“At least she feeds them vegetables?” he ventures, refilling both their wine glasses.

“Does it count as a vegetable if it’s so covered in cheese product you can’t see its original color?” 

“Jury’s still out.”

They eat in silence for a few moments.

“There’s a solution to your problem, you know,” Eric says eventually.

“Oh?” Sloane dabs at her lips with her napkin. “Bold of you to assume you’ve diagnosed my problem so quickly. Or that I have a problem at all.”

“Well, maybe I’m wrong. But you tell me: you barely know her, but you’re intrigued. You’re texting but you can’t really read much into it. Given the existence of more than one kiss, I’m assuming there’s some amount of sexual chemistry.” Eric clears his throat; the two of them are fine, they really are, but they don’t explicitly talk about sex with other people, yet.

“And your genius solution?”

“The time-honored tradition of getting to know another person more,” Eric says, gesturing at her with his fork. “Dating. In whatever sense you want, I mean: just sex, no sex, something in between. Find out how you get along, what you line up on.” Eric coughs. “And, regarding your point earlier, it also might help you ascertain whether gender is going to come into it for you.”

“Your solution is dating.” Sloane stares at him.

“I mean, the alternative, which is also an option, is to do nothing.” Eric shrugs. “Maintaining the status quo is always an option. Taking no action is also a choice. But in this case I don’t know that it’s going to help you very much.” He looks at her evenly. “And you’ve never been a passive person who waits for the universe to make something happen.”

Sloane sets her fork down so she can rub at her temples. 

“Just think about it,” Eric says. “Doesn’t have to be something you do immediately. But if you don’t, you might miss an opportunity.”

On the counter in between them, Sloane’s phone lights up: a message from Riley. Eric glances at the screen before he looks up at her, expression fond.

“I’m happy for you,” he says, standing up to take their plates to the sink. “I hope it… ends up being what you want.”

Sloane picks up her phone and thumbs open the message.


	4. daylight, spent the night without you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your lovely comments! I am sorry for the delay posting this chapter, my wife and I are dealing with some real-life home stuff that has been occupying my weekends.

Riley is cooking dinner when Sloane finally texts her. Or rather, the unknown number she assumes is Sloane texts her, and something shivery and excited slides across Riley’s skin. But she’s up to her elbows in olive oil and raw chicken and it’s therefore several minutes before she can wash her hands and open the message.

_It was good to see you today_

Ah yes, the return of the classic inscrutable Sloane, she of the cryptic texts and unreadable micro-expressions and triple-entendres. To be clear, Riley likes that Sloane: she likes the feeling of having to guess and then reveling in Sloane’s reaction when she gets it right, she likes not being able to predict what Sloane is about to say and do three moves out. She likes their constant negotiation, their calls and raises, and their posturing, even if it’s just over text. It’s refreshing, and it makes her curious. But earlier today, in that bathroom right before they’d kissed, Riley had gotten a glimpse of a different Sloane: a less-assured, less confident Sloane, one who’s maybe a little afraid, a little needy, a little less sure of herself.

Riley doesn’t know if it’s the gay thing, or the divorce thing, or maybe it’s even just a Sloane thing; maybe Sloane is like that on the inside all the time, and Riley’s just never been permitted to see it before. 

It’s the third Sloane Riley can’t stop thinking about, of course, the Sloane who had kissed and nipped her way down Riley’s neck and had felt Riley up over her dress (it’s been ages since Riley’s thought so much about something so innocent), who had pressed herself up against Riley and breathed against her skin like she couldn’t resist and then, two minutes later, was wiping her lipstick off Riley’s jaw like it was nothing.

Riley hadn’t pushed, because she could tell Sloane was still a little freaked out by the whole thing; the kiss had been pretty tame, all things considered. Sloane was still holding back, holding herself in, holding Riley at arm’s length. So was Riley, to be really honest, for reasons she’s not examining too closely.

Forty miles away and through the invisible ether of the internet, it’s easier to not hold back.

_You too. Hope I wasn’t too forward in giving you my number afterwards_

_Wasn’t really sure of the etiquette_

_You know, given the baby shower going on around us_

_I’m using it, aren’t I?_

_I suppose you are_

_And wouldn’t you know more about the etiquette around giving women your number than I would?_

_It may shock you to learn that I don’t, actually_

_Give my number out willy-nilly to random women, that is_

_So you’re saying I earned it?_

_I mean, “earned” is a word_

_I can think of a couple other ones_

_I’ll take that as a compliment_

_You should_

Riley can picture it, or she can picture what she hopes is happening: Sloane smirking down at her phone, thumbs hovering over the screen, maybe chewing on her lip a little.

Riley grabs a beer from the fridge and settles down into her couch as the chicken cooks.

_Are you back at the hospital tomorrow?_

_Yes. The sick and infirm do not observe Sunday as the day of rest_

_Are you having a wild Saturday night?_

_Hardly_

_I’m eating breakfast for dinner in my ex-husband’s kitchen_

_I am… not sure how to interpret that information_

_It’s a semi-regular occurrence, don’t read into it_

_He says_

Riley waits, but whatever Sloane’s ex (Aaron? Eric? Ed?) says is not forthcoming.

_He says what_

_Never mind_

_I’ve got to go, one of my children is crying upstairs_

Riley stares at her phone for long moments before she groans and leans back into the couch, closing her eyes. Sloane Caldwell is going to be the death of her.

\------

What actually threatens to be the death of Riley Bennett is the flu she catches in April.

Fine, it’s an overreaction. She does not even come close to dying from the flu. One Thursday she wakes up feeling groggy and achy, but it’s her day off so she just rolls over and goes back to sleep. But when she wakes again she feels worse, and she’s disoriented because the light in her bedroom is all wrong: the window is east-facing, so it should be bright and sunny, but instead it’s shadowy, crepuscular, like it’s already late afternoon.

When she checks her phone she realizes that it is indeed almost evening, and that she’s slept through the better part of an entire day. She catalogues her symptoms: headache, sore throat, lethargy, muscle pain. It’s the tail end of flu season, and so far she’s been able to avoid it, but as one of her med school professors used to say, a virus waits for no man or woman no matter how much they wash their hands, especially when they interact with the germy general population as a profession.

When Riley stands to make her way to the bathroom she feels lightheaded, and that is definitely not a good sign. The thermometer in her medicine cabinet says her fever is 100.2. Elevated, definitely indicative of infection; not so high that she worries.

Instead she texts Tiff.

_Fuck I think I have the flu_

_Oh no_

_Fever?_

_100.2_

_Shit_

_You’ve gotta call in, you can’t come to work with a fever_

_I know_

_I feel awful_

_Do you want me to come over? Do you need anything?_

_No it’s okay_

_Don’t expose yourself_

_Okay_

_Drink fluids_

_Don’t die_

_A+ advice, did you go to medical school or something?_

_Text me if you start hallucinating_

_Or just call 911 I guess_

_Thanks babe love you too_

The thing is, Riley hates being sick. Hates it, _hates it_ , which many people think is ironic because she’s a doctor, but many doctors think is completely understandable. Were she to psychoanalyze herself, she’d say it probably comes from having doctor parents, from having the people who care for you be simultaneously obsessed with your health and also, given their training, carefree about it. As an adult Riley understands it, but as a child she’d felt insecure, afraid, constantly monitored but not actually cared for, not coddled and gentled the way she wanted to be.

It’s probably unfair to her parents; she’s sure they did the best they could.

Also—and again, Riley knows this about herself—she is a _terrible_ patient. She’s petulant and whiny, convinced she knows more than the people caring for her do (this was true even as a child, although it’s surely more obnoxious now that she actually has her M.D.). She takes her physical discomfort out on whoever happens to be within firing range, and she’s ungrateful and combative whenever anyone tries to help. After ruining two relationships and one friendship as a result of this behavior, her go-to strategy now is to ride it out alone, to retreat, to burrow deeper into her bed and watch reality television until she feels better or until she feels demonstrably worse, and not talk to anyone she cares about until it’s over.

It’s a dumb strategy, the doctor in her knows, but she can blame the fever and say she’s not thinking rationally. (That’s not, of course, what fevers do.)

On Friday afternoon Tiff and Sarah leave two grocery bags of supplies outside her apartment: canned soup (the fancy kind), oranges and cucumbers and other high-water-content produce, Pedialyte, lemon ginger tea, bland crackers, cold-pressed green juice, and a scribbled note with Sarah’s Amazon login and password so Riley can watch seasons 7-12 of _Drag Race_ (only 1-6 are on Hulu, a fact that offends Riley on a deep level). Riley warms some soup up, eats maybe a third of it, sends a couple texts to people (her parents, her sister, Tiff and Sarah, Annie, Sloane, Abby and John) so they know she’s alive, and burrows back into her couch nest to fall asleep to the comforting, familiar sounds of _Sissy That Walk_ and Michelle Visage reading drag queens for their makeup.

On Saturday morning Tiff texts her, but Riley’s still sleeping, so she doesn’t see it.

_So uh your gift basket makeout friend is here_

_By here I mean “at the hospital” apparently she doesn’t know where you live_

_But she knows where you work, which, ouch dude_

_Anyway we’re… coming over, so if you’re awake you should like_

_Put on a bra, or something_

_Or maybe not_

_She is very intense and commanding_

_I get why you’re into her now_

Riley sees none of it. She stirs a little on the couch when she hears the front door deadbolt drop, but she’s not that worried. Her mother and Tiff are the only people with keys, and it’s definitely not her mother. Ergo, by process of elimination, it must be Tiff.

“I told you to stay away, I’m still contagious,” Riley yells from the living room. Her voice is rough, scratchy from the sore throat and disuse. Footsteps approach her and Riley pokes her head out of her blanket cocoon, ready to glare (pitifully, with only one eye open) at Tiff.

“Well I’m glad to see you’re still alive,” says Sloane Caldwell.

“What,” says Riley. Is she actually hallucinating?

“I was wondering, for a minute,” Sloane continues, coming closer, sitting down next to Riley on the couch. She sounds real; oh god. “Your texts were getting less and less coherent.”

Riley thinks back; the likelihood that she sent Sloane a deranged, whiny text message (possibly several deranged, whiny text messages) is non-zero. It’s probably closer to ninety percent, honestly.

Riley groans and covers herself back up with the blanket. Christ, she hasn’t showered in _three days_. “Go away,” she says. “You don’t want my germs.”

Sloane clears her throat. “I’ll leave if you really want, of course.”

“How did… how are you even here?”

“I took the train,” Sloane says. “It’s a short trip.”

“What about the kids? What about my… lock?” Riley blames the fever for the notion that the two factors seem equally insurmountable to her.

“The kids are with Eric a day early,” Sloane says. “And your friend Tiffany let me in.” She pauses. “If you… would rather be by yourself, of course I’ll go.”

Riley can’t deal with this situation; she curls up around the pillow she’s clutching under the blanket.

“Riley.” 

“What?”

“If you would like me to leave, just say so.” Sloane sounds like she’s treading carefully. “I… I was worried, so I came up, but maybe I should have asked first.” Riley hears her exhale. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I won’t be offended.”

Now that the option has been made available to her, the very last thing Riley wants is for it to be taken away. After a moment she sticks an arm out from her cocoon, flailing in the direction she thinks Sloane is; Sloane takes her hand, strokes the back of it, just soft.

“I’m awful when I’m sick,” Riley mutters, into the pillow but loud enough so Sloane can hear. “Like, truly wretched. You’ll hate me. It’s embarrassing. You don’t need to stay.”

“I’d like to stay,” Sloane says eventually. “I won’t hold anything against you.” She breathes out. “But I understand if you’d rather be left alone.”

Riley squeezes her eyes shut. The worst part is that she already feels better: she already feels eased, safer, with the knowledge that there’s another person here, another person who’s here just for her.

“Will you stay?” she asks eventually, feeling very small.

Sloane kisses the back of her hand. “Of course.”

\------

When she wakes again she _thinks_ it’s still Saturday but she’s not sure. The entire atmosphere around her feels different: she smells something cooking and it’s warm and familiar; her disastrous tangle of blankets and couch cushions has been straightened to something comfortable but not suffocating; RuPaul is sauntering down the runway to _Covergirl_ in time to someone’s keyboard clacking, next to her on the couch.

Sloane.

Christ, she _still_ hasn’t showered.

Sloane somehow senses her waking. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“Mmm,” is all Sloane says. “Do you want some tea?”

Riley lifts her head to stare at her, knowing that her hair must be doing _all kinds_ of things at this point but unable to do anything about it. Sloane is very clearly settled in: she has her shoes off and her hair piled atop her head in a messy bun, with a laptop perched on top of her thighs and spreadsheets open on the screen. She looks more casual than Riley has ever seen her, which in other circumstances Riley would appreciate.

“It’s too hot.”

“I think you still have a fever,” Sloane agrees. “I left a glass of juice on the coffee table, though, if you can drink it.” Riley glares at her; Sloane is unfazed. “Okay, no juice. But there’s a water bottle next to you, you should at least drink something. You need fluids. ”

“Wow, it’s almost like you’re a doctor or something,” Riley says, sarcastic and bitchy and totally uncalled for. Sloane clears her throat. “Jesus, sorry, I.” Riley rubs her head where it’s throbbing. “I told you I’m awful when I’m like this, right?”

Sloane just looks at her. “You are extremely misguided if you think that you are any match in behavior for six-year-old twins with chickenpox at the same time.”

“Well,” Riley says, and to her annoyance has to clear her throat and cough and eventually fish around for the aforementioned water bottle. “Promise you’ll let me know if it gets that bad.” She coughs again; it sounds wet and disgusting, like a sea creature is trying to work its way out of her lungs. “I mean, you’re genetically required to love them, but not me.”

“I’ll let you know,” is all Sloane says. 

“What season is this?” Riley asks eventually, squinting at the television.

“I’m not sure, but it’s almost the finale.” Sloane says. “I love Sasha, but I think Shea is going to win.”

“You _would_ love Sasha,” Riley mutters. “So season nine. Just wait.”

“Why, is the last episode dramatic?”

Riley smiles to herself, despite it all. “The finales are always dramatic. Don’t watch it without me, I want to see your reaction.”

“That sounds ominous,” Sloane murmurs.

“Well, it’s gay reality television so on the one hand the stakes couldn’t be lower, but at the same time they also couldn’t be higher.”

Sloane hums and goes back to her spreadsheet. Riley considers her options: she’d been meaning to shower even before Sloane had shown up, and now the need has become immediate. Also, she wants to pee and brush her teeth. There’s nothing for it: she has to stand up. 

Sloane watches as Riley emerges from her cocoon but doesn’t try to help her, thank god.

“I’m going to go shower,” Riley announces once she’s fully upright, even though Sloane hadn’t asked.

“A good idea. Do you need help?” Riley’s brain runs wild with _that_ idea for a few moments.

“Ah, no, I think I’m good. Thanks.”

Brushing her teeth really does help, actually. Riley makes it through her shower feeling weak but with only one close call, which she regards as a win. In her bedroom she waffles for a moment and briefly considers trying to dress like an adult human being, but she ultimately decides that if Sloane is willing to deal with her when she’s sick, she can also deal with Riley’s preferred I-feel-like-shit outfit, which is her aunt’s wool socks, truly ancient joggers that say _Amherst Rugby_ down the leg, and a white muscle tank.

Sloane does not comment on her attire when Riley returns to the living room and sequesters herself back into the couch.

“Feel better?”

“Yes,” Riley admits, “but now I’m exhausted.”

“Go back to sleep for a bit,” Sloane says. “Dinner will be ready in an hour or so, you can nap.”

“Dinner?”

“I made soup,” Sloane says. “Something better than whatever you were planning to eat out of a can.”

“Hey, it’s the fancy canned kind,” Riley says, to deflect from the emotional confusion of the idea of Sloane in her kitchen, Sloane settling into Riley’s personal space and using her cutting boards and knives and stove, Sloane puttering around and washing the dishes at the sink, quotidian and domestic.

“There is no such thing,” Sloane says. She hesitates, and then reaches out a hand to rest it on Riley’s shoulder. “Sleep. It’ll be ready when you wake up.”

\------

“I like you like this.”

Riley’s been awake for long minutes now, surreptitiously staring at Sloane from her unobserved angle behind a couch cushion. Well, unobserved up until now: having opened her mouth, she’s alerted Sloane to her wakefulness.

“Like what?” Sloane says, keeping her focus on the episode of _Top Chef_ that’s now playing on Riley’s television. 

“Like this,” Riley repeats, shifting a little. Sloane’s hand, resting on her shoulder where it’s been since before she fell asleep, moves with her. “You seem… more relaxed. More casual.”

Sloane purses her lips, a little moue of annoyance, and half-turns to look at Riley. “More relaxed than what, exactly?”

Riley somehow, despite the fever, senses she may be walking into a trap, but there’s nothing for it now. “More relaxed than… when I’ve seen you recently.”

Sloane hums. “So you’re assuming that the scenarios to which you’re comparing my current status are… regular and comfortable for me? My natural state?”

Riley sighs and feels her headache threaten to return. “I guess not,” she mutters, and looks back to the television.

After a moment, Sloane moves her hand, just once: a short stroke along Riley’s shoulder. It feels almost like an apology. “I suppose your impressions of me recently have all been… well. During weddings and baby showers and over the holidays. I’m not my most relaxed, under those circumstances.”

“That’s fair,” Riley allows. On the television, Padma Lakshmi is telling a chef to please pack his knives and go.

“I didn’t know you played rugby,” Sloane says after a moment, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“Your sweatpants.”

Oh. “Oh, ah. I didn’t. Didn’t go to Amherst, either. I was never really that into organized sports, honestly.” The reason for her aversion—which is that after freshman year, team sports and locker rooms in general had not been safe or comfortable spaces for Riley until she escaped to college—remains unsaid. She wonders if Sloane picks up on it.

“Then whence the sweatpants?”

Riley winces; she’d been hoping Sloane wouldn’t ask, and now there’s nothing for it. “They’re my ex’s.”

“I see.”

“They just happen to be the most comfortable pants I own,” Riley says, unable to interpret the tone of Sloane’s voice, and weirdly needing Sloane to know she’s not wearing the pants because she’s still, like, in love with Priya, or something. “I haven’t seen Priya in several years.”

“I may or may not have kept several of Eric’s tee shirts in the divorce, so you’re in good company,” Sloane says mildly, sounding unbothered. “Are you currently seeing anyone?”

Riley’s eyebrows go _way_ up at the forthrightness of the question, but she doesn’t think Sloane can see her expression from this angle. “I… no. I am not. Seeing anyone.” Riley twists the blanket in her hands. “Although,” she clears her throat, “full disclosure, I do occasionally hook up with one of my fellow residents.”

“Tiffany? The one who let me in?”

Riley can’t help it: she laughs, even though halfway through it turns into a hacking cough. “Actually, no. To the shock of everyone, Tiff is straight.”

“ _Really_.”

“I know,” Riley says, amused. “It’s the haircut, it throws everyone off.” She turns her head to look at Sloane. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Turnabout is fair play. Are you seeing anyone?”

Sloane scoffs. “I am a recently-divorced woman with two children who recently moved.”

“That’s not an answer,” Riley says.

“No, of course I’m not seeing anyone.”

“I don’t see why there needs to be an _of course_ about it,” Riley says. And then, before she can think better of it, she says, “Do you want to?” She winces when she hears how it sounds. “I mean, like, do you _want_ to be dating? To meet someone?” Worse and worse; she shuts her mouth.

“If you’re asking whether I have emotionally recovered from the divorce, the answer is yes,” Sloane says after several beats of silence, voice perfectly even. “But also, my life is extremely full right now. I am not… actively seeking out romantic interests.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, and if Riley had her wits about her she might give it a shot: she might try to figure out what “actively seeking” means compared to “something falling in one’s lap,” and she might even tackle the portentous knot that is “romantic interest” if she had the wherewithal. But instead of the wherewithal she has the flu, and Sloane Caldwell is _right here_ on her couch with her hand on Riley’s shoulder, and Riley… can’t.

“Do you want some soup?” Sloane asks, two minutes into Riley’s silent meltdown. Riley thinks she maybe hears a thread of tension in Sloane’s voice, but she can’t tell for sure.

“Uh, yeah. Soup. Would be good.” Riley coughs again into her elbow. “Jesus, sorry, I’m disgusting.”

Sloane gets up from the couch and walks over to the kitchen. “You are not. Stay there, I’ll bring it.”

\------

Later that night Riley is lying wide awake, a consequence of having napped the entire day and also of the knowledge that Sloane is in the next room over, sleeping in Riley’s office-slash-guest-room. They’re sharing a wall, in fact, separated by nothing more than a few inches of drywall and empty space. Sloane may not know this particular fact, but Riley finds herself acutely aware of it. In the quiet dark she can imagine she hears Sloane breathing, low and steady in slumber.

Sloane is here. Sloane came here, to see Riley, because she was worried, because Riley was sick. Sloane dropped her kids off with Eric early, packed an overnight bag full of soft and comfortable clothes and her work laptop, maybe even went to the grocery store to get ingredients to make Riley soup. She took the train up and went and found Tiff at the hospital all so that she could appear, against all reason, in Riley’s living room, so that she could take off her shoes and tie back her hair and settle in next to Riley on the couch, so that Riley could learn the face she makes when she squints too long at a document on her computer screen and the noise she makes when someone does something particularly boneheaded on a reality television show. Sloane came here to see Riley, when Riley is at her physical and mental worst, and she _stayed:_ she’s here right now, she’s here still, a mere foot away from Riley but in the next room, sleeping underneath Riley’s sheets.

It’s that time of night when it’s so late it’s almost early, when reason departs and fantastical hyperbole and speculation take the place of logic and reality. Riley imagines herself getting up out of bed and slipping out her bedroom, imagines making her way towards the kitchen but pausing in front of Sloane’s door. She imagines she maybe hears a noise, maybe even an invitation. Sloane is awake when Riley steps inside: her eyes are wide in the shadowy room and her skin glows, limned in moonlight. From the bed, she beckons.

Christ.

Riley groans and rolls over.

\------

Somehow, despite not sleeping at all the night before, Riley wakes early. But Sloane wakes earlier, and when Riley steps out into the kitchen just before eight she sees Sloane there already, hair up again in a messy bun, dumping coffee grounds into Riley’s Chemex. She looks up when she hears Riley approach.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, looking back down at the coffee grounds as she pours a steady stream of water over them. “You look better.”

“I feel better,” Riley says, and it’s true. She feels, somewhat miraculously, like she was never sick at all: she’s not tired or weak, and her death rattle cough and headache have vanished. It’s a surprise, a medical mystery, but right now she doesn’t want to interrogate how she somehow feels so much better, because Sloane Caldwell is here, barefoot and making coffee in her kitchen.

“I’m glad,” Sloane says to the coffee grounds blooming in the Chemex, with her back to Riley.

“Must have been your miracle soup,” Riley murmurs, coming closer, coming up behind Sloane where she’s stood at the counter. “How did you sleep?” She stops just a few inches away, close enough to feel Sloane’s presence, but not touching.

“I was…” Sloane breathes in, still looking down at the counter. “Restless.”

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Riley says. She stares at the back of Sloane’s neck, at the soft baby hairs curling there at the nape. “Sounds like we were awake together.”

Sloane clears her throat, holding herself still. “I… it feels like you still have a fever.”

“I didn’t check this morning,” Riley says, instead of saying, _I feel completely fine, somehow, even though that’s not usually how the flu works_. “How can you tell?”

“I can feel it,” Sloane says.

“You aren’t even touching me.” 

Sloane turns her head, just halfway, so she’s in profile. She almost looks like she’s looking over her shoulder at Riley: coquettish, in invitation, or just with curiosity, Riley can’t tell. “I can feel it,” she repeats. “I can feel you.”

Riley kisses her, their third kiss. For the first one Riley had been shocked, and for the second one she’d been careful and restrained; for this one she’s aggressive, she’s demanding. She _wants_. She crowds Sloane against the counter, spins her around so she’s facing Riley, Chemex forgotten behind her, and Sloane gasps into it, brings her hands up to clutch at Riley’s waist, to her forearms. Riley pushes in with her hips, slides one leg in between Sloane’s, uses one hand to grip Sloane’s chin so she can direct the angle and uses the other to scratch at Sloane’s hipbone, to find the sliver of skin between her joggers and her tee shirt.

It’s stupid, for any number of reasons: Riley has the flu, even if her symptoms have somehow mysteriously vanished, and if Sloane didn’t already have it she definitely has it now; Sloane is potentially still straight, though Riley doubts that more and more these days; it’s eight in the morning on a Sunday and here they are, in front of god and everyone, making out in Riley’s kitchen.

But Riley doesn’t care, because Sloane is wild against her: she’s twitchy, she’s gaspy, she whimpers when Riley goes in with teeth on her neck, hisses into the bruise Riley sucks there. Sloane’s hands are everywhere, but they’re light and fluttering, like they aren’t quite sure where to land, or maybe the paralysis of choice is making them indecisive. Eventually Riley takes one and places it on her hip, and Sloane brings the other up to cup the back of Riley’s neck, to pull her in even closer. Riley pushes in with her pelvis, pushes up with the thigh that’s in between Sloane’s, and is rewarded with a hitch of Sloane’s breath and a jerk of her hips, with a little noise caught in Sloane’s throat that Riley thinks might have been her name.

Riley loses herself in it for long moments, the slide of lips and tongue and the torture of fingers and hands and legs between legs, but it’s not enough; she wants, and she wants more. And that’s when her reality very obligingly melts and morphs into the imagination from the night before, when it dissolves and re-forms into Riley’s office-slash-guest-room with Sloane on the bed underneath her, tugging Riley down on top of her and lit only by the moon, and that’s when Riley realizes that she’s dreaming.

\------

“So what happened?”

Riley stares at Tiff. “What do you mean, _so what happened_?” It’s four days later and Riley is finally back at work, recovered, but currently cornered at a hospital cafeteria table during her lunch break by Tiff.

“So Sloane came over, and you cuddled on the couch, and then what? Did you guys bone? Did you kiss her goodbye when you dropped her off at the train station? _Something_ must have happened.”

“I had the flu,” Riley says slowly, staring at Tiff like she’s lost her mind, but also feeling the hot, slow pulse of her dream-memory flickering back along her skin, the sensation of it sliding down the bumps of her spine. “First of all, germs. Second of all, I highly doubt it would have been a good showing on my part, given the fact that _I had the flu_. And third of all, I…” Riley shrugs. “I still can’t tell if she’s actually into me.” All of this is true, dream-Sloane notwithstanding, of course.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Why?”

Tiff rolls her eyes. “Leaving aside the fact that she has kissed you _twice_ : she literally took a train up here to see you when you were sick. She _stayed the night_. She spent an entire weekend with you when you were, by your own account, disgusting and obnoxious. Dude, I wouldn’t even get within five feet of you. She’s _obviously_ into you.”

Riley ignores that. “Anyway. Nothing happened. We watched a lot of TV and I napped. She went home Sunday night. Left like five gallons of really amazing soup in my freezer, though.” 

“I can’t believe this. I feel cheated.”

“You feel cheated?”

“Yes! This has the potential to be, like, some grade-A lesbian drama and you are _depriving me_.”

“I don’t even know why I talk to you,” Riley mutters. 

“Nobody else will tell you the truth,” Tiff says, going back to her sandwich. “Which is that this woman is _into you_.”

\------

_Thanks for coming up last weekend_

_It was_

_Really nice of you_

_Also your soup was delicious_

_Anyway, the next time we’re in the same city, I owe you dinner_

_No thanks necessary_

_I’m glad it wasn’t too much of an intrusion_

_Only if it’s not too forward to say you’re welcome any time_

_Now that you know where I live_

_I’ll keep that in mind_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I know I know... we are all Tiff, here. I promise these two will get their shit together soon.
> 
> For what it's worth, in my mind Tiff is played by Awkwafina if she had an alternative lifestyle haircut.


End file.
